Swedish American Genealogist
Volume 35 | Number 2 Article 3
6-1-2015 Swedish surnames 101 Robert M. Carlson
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Recommended Citation Carlson, Robert M. (2015) "Swedish surnames 101," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 35 : No. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol35/iss2/3
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Augustana Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swedish American Genealogist by an authorized editor of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Swedish surnames 101
What's in a name? In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet says to Romeo, "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
BY ROBERT M. CARLSON
As persons of Swedish descent, we all tice of patronymic naming begun to For a more detailed discussion see: are familiar with those of us who are be phased out in the late 1880s. Swedish Personal Names in America identified by common patronymic Before that, a daughter born to a by Folke Hedblom, Swedish Ameri- surnames such as mine. However, as Bjorn Larsson would have been can Genealogist, Vol. V, No. 1, March I examined records of Swedish parish named Brita Bjornsdotter rather 1985. churches during my genealogical re- than Brita Larsson. search, I found it was Carlsson. Even Johansson is the most common growing up with Swedes in Minne- patronymic surname in Sweden, The 25 most common sota, I never knew a double "s" Carl- followed by Andersson and Karlsson. surnames in Sweden in son. Probably, one "s" was dropped It is interesting that even today, 2013 and 2014 when my father's family, as many Iceland still follows the practice of Rank Number of bearers others did, went through immigration patronymic naming and people are 2014 2013 2014 in 1886. However, it is interesting to listed in phone books alphabetically 1 (1) Andersson 245 208 note when one looks at a current by first name. 2 (2) Johansson 245018 phone book in Sweden, there are 3 (3) Karlsson 217 604 extremely few people named Carls- 4 (4) Nilsson 167 207 Other types of names 5 (5) Eriksson 144659 son; but there are literally thousands Many other "pure" Swedes have non- 6 (6) Larsson 121 966 spelled Karlsson. What gives? patronymic surnames that may be 7 (7) Olsson 111 402 In 1906 Sweden instituted a spell- "soldier names." These were a result 8 (8) Persson 105390 ing reform: "C" was changed to "K." 9 (9) Svensson 99023 of military units having too many 10 (10) Gustafsson 95371 Also a number of other letters or com- men with the same name such as 11 (11) Pettersson 93559 binations of letters were changed for Johnsson, Petersson, Svensson, etc. 12 (12) Jonsson 72536 better sound/spelling correspon- Recruits with these names were giv- 13 (13) Jansson 48996 dences. Usage of the letters "q" and en new names by the officers. 14 (14) Hansson 43021 "w" became rare. The letters f, fv, fw, 15 (15) Bengtsson 33525 Some were based on human at- 16 (16) Jonsson 31 376 hv, and hw as signs of the V-sound tributes such as Lang (tall), Rask 17 (17) Lindberg 27605 were replaced by V. For example, my (swift), or Modig (courageous) while 18 (18) Jakobsson 26505 grandmother Gustafva would have others were something physical such 19 (19) Magnusson 26256 become Gustava. as Dahl (valley), Hjort (deer), or 20 (20) Olofsson 25996 When one does Swedish genea- 21 (21) Lindstrom 25009 Strand (shore). When discharged, the 22 (22) Lindqvist 22996 logical research one is confronted man might retain his soldier name 23 (23) Lindgren 22889 with the changing of the surname as his new surname. 24 (24) Axelsson 22486 with each generation (patronymics). Others took "ornamental" two- 25 (25) Berg 21 624 For example: my paternal great- syllable surnames that were com- Source: Statistics Sweden, www. scb.se grand father was Carl Ljungman. The binations of short words such as: surname of Carl's son Johannes, my Nordlund (north + grove), Granquist grandfather, became Carlsson (geni- (spruce [tree] + twig), Kronholm tive case, dropping the apostrophe (crown + island). Incidentally, Lind- and space). If that had continued, my The author is Robert M. Carlson, berg (linden [tree] + mountain) is the Clinton Twp, MI. father would have been Gustave Jo- most common non "son" surname in hannesson (son of Johannes). I would His e-mail is: Sweden representing 0.3 percent of
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